Well said, Lynne. There's lots to consider here. I'll be back.

overall, i got one word for this post: bravo
i wish i could say more...but deadlines await. every single little boy with a crazyass (no homo) sig taking up stupid bandwidth on allhiphop.com needs to subscribe to your blog.

Knowning you for a little bit, you've mentioned this before. Let's hope this sparks more MEANINGFUL discussion. Like JT said, you gave us more than a mouthful to chew on.

Give it tooo 'em Lynne,

What a well put article - and it has morphed from a blog entry to an hip hop article - which is fire. I love it when you school these kids on your hotness.

I may need to re-read this just to gleam a few points.

Damn, you went there on this post, Lynne. Lots of stuff to think about. I especially like whe you ask "whether black music has evolved or not" and " whether today's black music truly represents the 'black experience' in America". It's got me to thinking maybe hip hop IS a true representation of the black experience and its values. Perhaps it's MY values that have changed.

Just to point this out- there are other female bloggers who dig into hip-hop, namely Tiffany Trott, Tiny, and Julianne Shephard.

But just like you Lynne they feel comfy vearing off into other areas of their life. Or to put it better, they speak about their life and veer into hip-hop sometimes. Is THAT a female thing?

Women seem to treat blogging like a personal journal while men treat it like mini magazines.

Thank you Lynne.

I love this post and I've been saying the same thing. I find it kind of strange and occasionally interesting how so many blogs are goal-oriented -- they're going to show you that they have their pulse on music/culture/latest fads/styles/etc and get that linkage. I remember some controversy a few months back where there was blog beef because someone got dropped from a blog roll. Please! I like to say often mine is just about whatever randomness popped in my head at the moment. I'm always surprised that someone I don't know might be interested because my imagined audience is me and my old friends wondering what's up with me. Is there a *generalization coming* gender split? Somebody should mine an article out of this! But, I'd naturally like it to be me. :)

"If i am black and you are black and we share not an experience between us, then what is "the black experience?"

...

I've been longing for this type of writing. I often check in to see what you are saying. That quote is so powerful. I don't know if we will be able to answer that question, especially when many are creating fictional alter-egos to portray in music. I also appreciate how you incorporated Leroi Jone's book in there as well. It does appear as though the female voices are being muffled, but I'm hearing you loud and clear.

There's a lot that goes with how we define our sites.

I don't consider my site a blog, really (I'm not often simply linking to other parts of the web as the traditional weblog definition requires) and am more of a diarist who sometimes blog. And 99% of the time, I write as if my blog lives in a vacuum. It's been a long time since I've used my site as a way to rebut some other blog. I will use it as a way to do essay or critical writing without having to seek a publisher but I don't much get in the conversations, I don't think.

I don't have the time. And, really, I rarely find it fruitful because people are all coming from such different levels of knowledge and there isn't an even playing field for the discourse.

This ain't the discussion section of your hip hop 101 class at the college, you know?

Which is why I think for my purposes, if I am going to write a piece that others are talking about I don't address their individual points but only write from my vantage point and then link to the other discussions without giving them more or less weight.

I don't want to be in the pissing match.

well damn lynne, what don't you do!? i must say that i do like when you go on these tangents of yours... this is some nice stuff here. something that WILL make these young hip hop heads think! i appreciate this one girl. keep it up!

peace

I guess I treat my blog like a mini-magazine because of my past work-related experience as an editor for magazines and websites.

I don't treat my blog like a personal journal because (1) I don't get personal -- even in my private life, which may explain why I don't have a girlfriend. (2) None of my readers care about my personal life -- which is perfectly fine with me. I only get personal when I need to be. My private life is boring anyways, I don't need to post about it.

So, in turn, I write about my first and true love, music. I post about hip-hop because -- as corny or cliche as this sounds -- it's the soundtrack of my life. And as corny as this sounds -- hip-hop defines who I am. The way I dress, the way I write, the way I think and some of my belief systems are based on hip-hop. Yes, The Good, The Bad, The Misyogny, The Bullshit that is filtering in hip-hop I embrace them to the fullest. Like I wrote before, hip-hop is not a perfect culture, and rappers can't be our heroes.

So when Gregg Tate -- whom I consider the godfather of hip-hop journalism (along with Bonz Malone and others) -- pens a eulogy for hip-hop, essentially he's telling me that I'm dead. And that's a scary feeling for me, and right now, I'm trying to fight for my life. Gregg has nailed the coffin shut; buried me with dirt and I'm still kicking around in the casket, you know what I'm sayin'??!!?? (Like that scene in Kill Bill, Vol. 2 where Uma Thurman is being buried alive in the coffin with a flashlight. That's me. Noooooo!)

So I'm very thankful when I read brilliant essays on hip-hop by Lynne, hardCore, Jason T., O-Dub, Jay Smooth and the rest of the diarists. I feel like I can breathe again. I can feel the beats and the turntable scratching once again. I can smell the spray paint and feel the spit from an MC reciting some crazy rhymes all over again.

Thanks to them, I know that hip-hop is not dead.

And it is these long-winded conversations (which have been deemed pissin' matches) on the strengths and weaknesses of hip-hop that will remind us of our own failings -- which none of us want to admit -- but it also reminds us of our great potential.

And cliche as this sounds . . .

Hip-Hop and Ya Don't Stop . . . .

This fucking "having conversations with other blogs" shit is fucking bullshit.

I wish the entire blogosphere was women talking about their "black femaleness."

>I remember some controversy a few months back where there was blog beef because someone got dropped from a blog roll. Please!

Sounds like a real asshole to me.

Endemic means "native". I don't think you mean "endemic". Sorry if I'm getting in the way of your self-expression through illiteracy.

I've been reading your thoughtful posts for close to a year now. In spaces too often littered with disposable musings, I have appreciated your thoughtful ones. As a black woman who grew up in the South as hip-hop was becoming a national phenomenon, I have a problematical relationship with it. After a while, what bothers me most is not the performers and not even the companies, but the consumers. It is the attitude of passivity that would seem to me to run counter to hip-hop as a folk art since most folk arts emphasize the masses living the art. Often, hip-hop's problems (or perceived problems) are laid at the foot of American racism, corporatism or something similar and then we just walk away from them.

I understand that blacks are not the majority of consumers of hip-hop (in terms of albums and tracks sold). Yet, we are the folks who seem to want to own it--to claim it as ours, as some part of an experience that presumably runs though our culture. We are the ones who can become sensitive to the possibilities that it will be (or has been) stolen. Too much of that claiming seems to me to be passive and defensive--protecting something as it is, instead of what it should be.

It is as if black people would deny our own agency, our own ability to change some element of our worlds. Maybe, it's a habit learned from our history, but it's one we might think about breaking.

As the winner of the 2005 Gregg Tate Debate, I would like to thank my fellow bloggers, my parents, and my housemates. Also, I would like to thank a few others: the media, for not covering anything of importance; the school system, for keeping children ignorant; and the church, for keeping the world spiritually bankrupt. Also, I would like to thank Bol, for making me look sensitive.

Oh, and if you think women have it tough in these little blogland spats, just imagine what it's like for a rich, white homosexual like Byron Crawford! My heart goes out to him (no homo;).

Dear NACHLIN,

Thank you for correcting my "illiteracy" as you term it. But let's truly break down the meaning of the word endemic - and since in parenths - i put in (if i may use that word) illustrates that i was using the term loosely to make a point. Though I could have used the word w/out the parenths, b/c anyone knowing the full meaning of that word, knows that it fits w/in the context of what i was writing.

And even if I incorrectly used the word, to take that one word out of my entire post to try and invalidate my entire post just further highlights what i'm trying to say here. People no longer help one another in this society, or at least in this blog space. They'd rather belittle or riducle. If you feel i'm illiterate, then please, do me a favor, do not visit here and read the musings of an iliterate person.

but anyway...

From the American Heritage Dictionary

endemic (adj) 1. prevalent in or peculiar to a particular locality, region, or people: diseases are endemic to the tropics. See synonyms at natvie. 2. Ecology. Native to or confined to a certain region. endemic n. Ecology. An endemic plant or animal.

From Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary

endemic adj 1 a. belonging or native to a particular people or country b. characteristic of or prevalent in a particular field, area, or environment 2. restricted or peculiar to a locality or region

so why is it that hip-hop's evils wouldn't be "native" to or (god forbid even of) America's evils? although that's not exactly the direction i was going in with the use of the word "endemic."

but anyway...

From dictionary.com

na·tive adj.1. Existing in or belonging to one by nature; innate: native ability. 2. Being such by birth or origin: a native Scot. 3. Being one's own because of the place or circumstances of one's birth: our native land. 4. Originating, growing, or produced in a certain place or region; indigenous: a plant native to Asia. 5. 1. Being a member of the original inhabitants of a particular place. 2. Of, belonging to, or characteristic of such inhabitants: native dress; the native diet of Polynesia. 6. Occurring in nature pure or uncombined with other substances: native copper. 7. Natural; unaffected: native beauty. 8. Archaic. Closely related, as by birth or race. 9. Biochemistry. Of or relating to the naturally occurring conformation of a macromolecule, such as a protein.

the fact that you posted w/out even a link to your email addy or website, proves that the only reason you even posted a comment was to either rile me up or disprove my argument - so, ok you riled me up given that i didn't even delete your comment

'nuff said...

"Now I'm not at all offering that hip-hop is dead, but something is definitely afoot here. And y'all gotta' admit that a lot of mediocre shit is getting peddled as hip-hop proper (make that gospel)."

Isn't this the point? Things weren't fine and dandy back in the 80's/early 90's, and yet there was still posturing going on (big cars, gold chains and such). Yet things did seem alot less innocuous to me. Call me old man, nostalgic or whateva.

This post was fantastic. Not so wild about the comments.

especially when many are creating fictional alter-egos to portray in music.

Um...are you arguing that hip-hop isn't "real" enough? The problem isn't that it isn't real, the problem is that its realness is of any consequence to us.

So you don't get involved in testosterone feuds about who knows more, unlike men you think before you speak, yet you haven't been invited into that select cadre of hip hop bloggers?